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World War I/Transcript
Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby A boy, Tim, and a robot, Moby are rummaging through a garage. Tim is looking at a photo album he found in a box labeled "U.S. Army." Moby looks at the album. MOBY: Beep. TIM: That's my great-grandpa, Timothy. I was named after him. He was a medic in World War One. An image shows a picture of a World War One soldier. MOBY: Beep. TIM: I, uh, I don't know who he was named after. Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, Why was World War One called the Great War? From, Abby. MOBY: Beep. TIM: No, it wasn't a fun time. People called it the Great War because World War One was bigger than any war that came before it. A lot of new military technology like airplanes, submarines, machine guns, heavy artillery, and even poison gas were used during World War One. This new technology made for a lot of casualties. Nine million soldiers died, and twenty-three million more were wounded. Images show an airplane, a submarine, a machine gun, a tank, and a dark cloud of poisonous gas. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, it all started on June twenty-eighth, nineteen-fourteen, when a Serbian man assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. An image shows Archduke Franz Ferdinand. TIM: Ferdinand was in line to be king of Austria-Hungary, a powerful empire in the center of Europe. A month after the assassination, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. A political map shows the nations of Central Europe as they existed in nineteen-fourteen. The nations of Austria-Hungary and Serbia are highlighted. MOBY: Beep. TIM: It's, it's complicated. Before World War One, there was a lot of tension brewing in Europe. Different countries were competing for land and power. It was really just a matter of time before war broke out. An animation shows a pulsating political map of Western Europe that blows up. TIM: When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, all the other countries started choosing sides. Russia had an alliance with Serbia, so it joined the war. The political map shows Europe with Russia highlighted. MOBY: Beep. TIM: An alliance is an agreement between two or more countries to help each other out. Europe had so many alliances going on that what began as a conflict between two countries became a huge war between many. On one side, the Allied Powers included Serbia, France, Belgium, Russia, and Great Britain. On the other side, the Central Powers were Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. Most of the fighting took place in Belgium and France, with the German Army doing most of the work for the Central Powers. The political map shows the countries in the Allied Powers and the Central Powers, as Tim names them. The countries of Belgium and France are shown in close-up. TIM: Up-close fighting in trenches, called trench warfare, was a big part of World War One. Battles raged on without either side gaining an inch. An image shows soldiers crouching in trenches, their rifles aimed at the enemy. TIM: The Battle of the Somme, in nineteen-sixteen, lasted for months. Some three-hundred-thousand soldiers died, and about a million more were injured, and the Allies gained less than ten kilometers of land! A political map shows the location in northern France of the Battle of the Somme. TIM: Woodrow Wilson, the American president, tried to keep the U.S. out of the war. Along with many Americans, he saw this as a European conflict, and wanted nothing to do with it. But two major events forced him to enter the war. An image appears of Woodrow Wilson. TIM: On May seventh, nineteen-fifteen, a German submarine sank a British ocean liner called the Lusitania, and one-hundred-twenty-eight American civilians died. An animation shows the ship, the Lusitania, sinking in the ocean, and a submarine's periscope sticking above the water. TIM: In February of nineteen-seventeen, the Zimmerman Telegram was discovered. The German government was asking Mexico to join the war. An image shows the Zimmerman Telegram. TIM: In return, Germany would help Mexico take a bunch of southwestern states back from the United States. Also, an internal revolution caused Russia to pull out of the war in nineteen-seventeen, making the Allied forces desperate for help. The U.S. entered the war on the side of the allies in April of nineteen-seventeen. An image shows a map of the United States and Mexico, with four U.S. southwestern states highlighted. TIM: Congress passed the Selective Service Act, saying that all men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one had to sign up for military service. The US drafted three-million people! That included three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand African Americans. An image shows the U.S. Capitol building. TIM: Most American soldiers fought in France. An image shows American soldiers coming ashore on a French beach. TIM: With the help of America, the Allies started winning. Big battles like the Argonne and the Second Battle of the Marne pushed the German armies back. On November eleventh, nineteen-eighteen, the Germans agreed to an armistice, or cease-fire. A map shows the France-Belgium region. Arrows indicate that German armies were pushed back. '' ''A white flag appears over Germany. TIM: The Treaty of Versailles made Germany accept the blame for the war and pay the Allies thirty-three-billion dollars in war reparations! President Wilson argued for less harsh measures in his famous Fourteen-Point Plan for Peace, but he was overruled. Many historians believe that the Treaty of Versailles was partly to blame for World War Two twenty years later. An image shows the Treaty of Peace between France and Great Britain, signed in Versailles. MOBY: Beep. Moby appears next to Tim, wearing a gas mask and military helmet. Tim is startled. TIM: Aaah! Please don't do that. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts